What's being done to move the Rockford area forward and what sometimes holds us back?

Saudargas, Scrivano and Rockford's pro-choice problem

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By Isaac Guerrero

Whatís being done to move the Rockford area forward and what sometimes holds us back? Thatís what interests reporter Isaac Guerrero. The Rockford native writes about higher education and public/private partnerships Ė how public and quasi-public
...

Whatís being done to move the Rockford area forward and what sometimes holds us back? Thatís what interests reporter Isaac Guerrero. The Rockford native writes about higher education and public/private partnerships Ė how public and quasi-public agencies leverage your tax dollars to boost tourism, economic development and education. Isaac is a Rockford native and a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern University. He has held a variety of writing and editing roles at the Register Star since 1998.

(Note to reader: At the bottom of this blog post, there's a short update based on what happened at today's hearing.)

Choice is a great thing, isn’t it? In this life we get to choose who we love, who we hate and, in some states, who we can marry.

But if you’re a voter in Rockford School District, Subdistrict C, Julie Pick wants to take away your freedom to choose one of your two school board candidates on the April 9 ballot.

The candidates are Alice Saudargas and incumbent Ken Scrivano. Both have a fine history of service to the district. I don’t live in Subdistrict C so I don’t have a dog in this hunt. I live in Subdistrict E, where I get choose between Kim Mullins and Mike Harner.

My colleague Cathy Bayer has reported that voters in Subdistrict D no longer have a choice between incumbent board member Jude Makulec and challenger Steve Noll. Makulec told Noll she’d challenge his petitions because he didn’t have enough valid signatures, and he would lose when all of this came out during a hearing. So Noll dropped out, and Makulec gets a free ride for another two years. Choice is a great thing, isn’t it?

I haven’t examined the petition signatures of any candidates for the upcoming primary or general elections. But lots of people have been engaged in this activity and every election there are candidates knocked off the ballot because they didn’t sign their nominating petitions correctly or number their petition pages correctly or get enough valid voter signatures or staple this or notarize that.

The system by which we put candidates on the ballot is absurd. Too often, the arcane rules of this bureaucratic process favor the political establishment and the incumbents. There are exceptions to this, but generally speaking this system favors the rich, educated incumbents of one party or the other. If you’re new to the game, if you slip up in the least, if you don’t gather at least double the number of petition signatures you’re supposed to gather, if you dare to challenge the establishment, then someone may object to your petitions.

And when someone objects, a Kafkaesque trial is convened. Oftentimes, the accused candidate loses his or her spot on the ballot and voters are denied a choice because the panel of judges is stacked with people whose political leanings are not aligned with those of the candidate.

A lot of times, it’s not even the candidate who objects to the petitions of the other candidate or candidates. They get a friend or some obscure person or a political ally to do the objecting for them so it looks like they’re above the fray.

It’s all crap. It's politics at its worst. We wouldn’t let our children play games like this. And yet we engage in this embarrassing behavior every election season.

My colleague Jennifer Wheeler writes about Boone County government for this newspaper. She tells me that in the village of Poplar Grove, there hasn’t been an objection filed to a village candidate’s petition in more than a decade. Poplar Grove: our last speck of human decency on the map.

You can’t tell me that the hundreds of candidates who are running for political office in Winnebago and Boone counties don’t have flaws on their petitions. Of course they do. And many of them will remain on the ballot and be elected and we’ll never know the difference. Because no one will object to their petitions.

But watch out if you’re one of the unlucky few whose petitions are subjected to hyper-partisan scrutiny. Choice is a great thing, right?

Scrivano has not objected to Saudargas’ nominating petitions. Scrivano told Cathy Bayer he wouldn’t do that because he’s not a political guy and he’s known Saudargas his whole life. But local pastor Matthew Johnson-Doyle is working on the Scrivano campaign and he asked his friend Pick to file the objection.

I don’t care who you like or don’t like in this contest, I just want there to be a contest. Because choice is a great thing, isn’t it?

Look, running for Rockford School Board is no small matter. The candidates, if they win, will influence how we educate our children. They’ll decide how hundreds of millions of our tax dollars are spent.

Yes, there are rules you have to follow if you want to run for office. Rules are important and we need them. And it’s easy to say that if you don’t follow the rules, how can you expect voters to trust you to with such important policy and spending decisions. And it’s easy to say that a 96-year-old woman has already had her day in the sun and she shouldn’t run for office if she can’t follow the rules.

But who understands all of these rules, really? Who are these rules written for? Aren’t most of these rules just plain stupid? If we, the good people of Rockford, lament our collective lack of civic engagement as we often do, then isn’t it worth examining these rules and adopting new rules to encourage proper engagement?

We could do that if we really wanted to do that. Or we could play the same games and deny ourselves the freedom to choose. I like to think my city is better than that.

Saudargas is not the ideal candidate. Neither is Scrivano and neither is anybody. Ideals are great to have but you never obtain the ideal thing you’re looking for. It’s a journey. You try to be kind to people and you try to be better today than you were yesterday. I love that a 96-year-old woman is more engaged than most people I know who are half of her age. Or a third of her age. Or even a fourth of her age, which would be 24 years old, which is plenty old enough to vote.

What I really want to know is what are some of Scrivano’s supporters so scared of? Do they really think Saudargas is a threat? Why not let the voters decide? Surely there are more productive ways for all of you objectors to be engaged during this silly season.

I’m writing about Saurdargas and Scrivano but I could have written about plenty of others. My colleague Kevin Haas notes on his blog that Rockford Park District Commissioner Nate Martin was bumped from the ballot yesterday because problems with his petitions.

I remember years ago when Luther Landon objected to the manner in which then Winnebago County Board Chairman Kris Cohn bound her petition pages during a re-election bid. She used a paper clamp. This was deemed OK by a local election panel. The ruling was appealed and affirmed by a state appeals court. John Nelson, Landon's attorney in that case, said this to the Register Star reporter who wrote the story:

"Clearly," Nelson said, "Illinois has some of the more restrictive laws in the nation on ballot access."

Don’t get me wrong, I am not pro-Saudargas. I am pro-choice when it comes to having choices on the ballot. We just don't live in a state run by people who feel the same way.

Post-hearing update:

The Saudargas petition hearing adjourned this afternoon and will reconvene at 2 p.m. Jan. 15 at the Rockford School District administration building, 501 Seventh St.

What's interesting to me is that this three-member panel (Harmon Mitchell, Tim Rollins and Paul Logli) doesn't have to follow the law when it makes its ruling. They can decide whatever they want. And if either Saudargas or Julie Pick is unhappy with that decision, they can appeal the ruling in court, provided they are prepared to pay a lawyer to help them with the appeal.

I asked Roberta Holzwarth (she's the attorney representing Pick) how anyone is supposed to look at what transpired today and not think that a 96-year-old woman who has been in the hospital since Sunday is simply being picked on.

"We did not know she was in the hospital when we filed the (objection) petitions," Holzwarth said. "This is not at all intended to be an attack on Mrs. Saudargas. She is well respected in this community. She would have been a good candidate, I suppose, for office. But again, the rules are in place for reasons. The election code is set up so that the only way those rules are enforced is if someone objects, so you have to go through this process."

Holzwarth is right. The law is the law. But is this law the best law? Should we pursue better laws to improve engagement in local government? I asked Holzwarth if she likes having a choice when she steps into the voting booth.

"I like having choice," Holzwarth said. "But that doesn't mean I want a choice of individuals who got there improperly."